Alexis Hunter
Encyclopedia
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
painter and photographer, who uses feminist theory
Feminist theory
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophical discourse, it aims to understand the nature of gender inequality...
in her work. She lives in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Alexis Hunter is also a member of Stuckism
Stuckism
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...
.
Life and career
Alexis Hunter was born in Epsom, AucklandAuckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
, one of twins. Her twin sister is the print maker and photographer Alyson Hunter
Alyson Hunter
Alyson Hunter is a New Zealand photographer and print maker, resident in London, who, during the 1970s and 1980s, employed an unusual technique of etching with a chemically modified photographic image.-Life:...
. Her parents had emigrated from Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
in 1947. She was raised in Titirangi in the Waitakere Ranges in Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
. 1966–1969, she studied at Elam School of Fine Art, where she was influenced by a tutor Colin McCahon
Colin McCahon
Colin John McCahon was a prominent New Zealand artist. During his life he also worked in art galleries and as a university lecturer...
's ethics that the artist has responsibility as a member of society. In 1970, she lived in a commune in Cairns. In 1971, she took a teaching diploma in art and history.
In 1972 she moved to London and worked in film animation. She was a member of the Women's Workshop of the Artists Union (1972–1975) and the Woman's Free Arts Alliance. She has said that during this time of her feminist stance, "We were ridiculed in the press. We couldn't get work", and that she also found it difficult to get photo labs to print her work.
She started to study European tattoos, after listening to a lecture at the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
, which described them in a belittling way; she said, "I was angry because I know from New Zealand culture that tattooing was a very important part of Maori social structure." She took photos in the street of men with tattoos and received sexist accusations, which she rejected.
She used the image of hands in her work. A series, Approach to Fear II: Change – Decisive Action (1977), depicts red nail varnish being taken off and fingernails being cut with a razor blade. Sexual Warfare (1975) is a grid of photographs with text, where her own hands show different methods of killing a male partner, such as a pair of scissors being clutched and the text "Castrate, dedicated to Delilah". Threat and humour combine, and the word "Compete" is hand with the book, How to Make it in a Man's World. Images in the series, The Marxist Housewife (Still Does the Housework) (1978), show a manicured hand cleaning a poster of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, referencing both class issues and Marx's lack of recognition of domestic labour in his writing. The series Identity Crisis consists of six photographs of Hunter, each taken by a different person over a two week period, showing how they saw her, ranging from the feminity of wearing a pearl necklace to a defiant stance wearing a hard hat
Hard hat
A hard hat is a type of helmet predominantly used in workplace environments, such as construction sites, to protect the head from injury by falling objects, impact with other objects, debris, bad weather and electric shock. Inside the helmet is a suspension that spreads the helmet's weight over the...
.
She also photographed men, in common with feminist practice of the 1970s, to reverse the traditional position of men's visualization of women. Her Sexual Rapport series (1972–1976) consists of image of men, whom she had photographed in the street in Hoxton
Hoxton
Hoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, immediately north of the financial district of the City of London. The area of Hoxton is bordered by Regent's Canal on the north side, Wharf Road and City Road on the west, Old Street on the south, and Kingsland Road on the east.Hoxton is also a...
, London and Little Italy
Little Italy
Little Italy is a general name for an ethnic enclave populated primarily by Italians or people of Italian ancestry, usually in an urban neighborhood.-Canada:*Little Italy, Edmonton, in Alberta*Little Italy, Montreal, in Quebec...
in New York: they include workers on lunch break and policemen, who are shown in a friendly and good-natured fashion. Hunter then marked the photographs, "Yes", "No" or "Maybe", to indicate the level of sexual rapport she felt existed with the subjects.
In 1978 her photographic exhibition Approaches to Fear was staged by Sarah Kent
Sarah Kent
Sarah Kent is a British art critic, formerly the art editor of the weekly London 'what's on' guide Time Out. She was an early supporter of the Young British Artists in general, and Tracey Emin in particular, helping her to get early exposure. This has led to polarised reactions of praise and...
, who was then Exhibitions Director at the Institute of Contemporary Arts
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
in London. That year she showed at the Hayward
Hayward Gallery
The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre, part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames, in central London, England. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings and also the Royal National Theatre and British Film Institute...
Annual, in 1979 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, and in 1981 at the Summer Show 2 at the Serpentine Gallery
Serpentine Gallery
The Serpentine Gallery is an art gallery in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, central London. It focuses on modern and contemporary art. The exhibitions, architecture, education and public programmes attract approximately 750,000 visitors a year...
, London. She was in Contemporary Acquisitions (The Imperial War Museum, London, 1981), Mythic Landscapes and Memory Series (Totah Gallery, New York, 1984), Whitechapel Open (Whitechapel Gallery
Whitechapel Gallery
The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, it was founded in 1901 as one of the first publicly-funded galleries for temporary exhibitions in London, and it has a long...
, London, 1987), Fantasy (Touring: United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...
and England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, 1994), and Technomyths (Whitespace Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2002). She showed work in group shows at the Stuckism International Gallery
Stuckism International Gallery
The Stuckism International Gallery was the gallery of the Stuckist art movement. It was open 2002 to 2005 in Shoreditch, and run by Charles Thomson, the co-founder of Stuckism...
in 2003.
A revival of interest in early feminist art led her in 2007 to stage a show of older work, Alexis Hunter: Radical Feminism in the 1970s, shown at the Norwich Gallery, England, and at the Whitespace Gallery in New Zealand. Kathy Battista in Frieze
Frieze (magazine)
-Publication:frieze is published eight times a year and is based in London. As well as essays, exhibition reviews and columns by forward-thinking writers, artists, critics and curators, the magazine includes music reviews, artist projects, interviews and sections on design and...
said the show, "situated her practice as an important contribution to Britain’s feminist movement within the visual arts." Hunter said:
The black and white image used for the exhibition catalogue cover from her 1970s Sexual Rapport series, showed a man's bare torso, wearing leather trousers, with the twin towers of the World Trade Center
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
in the background as the "ultimate phallic symbols", while he holds a smoking cigarette at the level of his penis. The image sums up her "combination of intellectual inquiry into desire and subjectivity, but handled with tongue-in-cheek humour and ease."
In 2007, her work was also included in Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution (Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA)
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles is a contemporary art museum with three locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near Walt Disney Concert Hall...
, Los Angeles, and the Stuckist
Stuckism
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...
show, I Won't Have Sex with You as long as We're Married, at the A Gallery in London. In 2008, she founded the Camden Stuckist group in Camden
London Borough of Camden
In 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough were already developed and had a total population of 96,795. This continued to rise swiftly throughout the 19th century, as the district became built up; reaching 270,197 in the middle of the century...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
She has lectured in UK art schools and other countries and in 1987 was Associate Professor of Painting and Photography at University of Houston
University of Houston
The University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
, Texas. She is married to ex-rugby International Baxter Mitchell, who owned The Falcon pub, which supported independent bands in the 1980s such as Blur
Blur (band)
Blur is an English alternative rock band. Formed in London in 1989 as Seymour, the group consists of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Blur's debut album Leisure incorporated the sounds of Madchester and shoegazing...
.
Work in collections
Hunter's work is represented in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern ArtScottish National Gallery of Modern Art
The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, holds the national collection of modern art. When opened in 1960, the collection was held in Inverleith House, at the Royal Botanic Gardens...
, Otago University and the Arts Council of Great Britain
Arts Council of Great Britain
The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. The Arts Council of Great Britain was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England , the Scottish Arts Council, and the Arts Council of Wales...
collection.